


The Waiting Game

by edna_blackadder



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/F, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 06:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edna_blackadder/pseuds/edna_blackadder
Summary: Following Eleanor's revelation about Reboot 119 and the discovery of Janet's Jason shrine, Tahani wants answers about another reboot.





	The Waiting Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ironed_orchid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironed_orchid/gifts).



“Holy forking shirtballs!” Eleanor exclaimed. “We’re in the Good Place!”

**Five Minutes Later**

“Um,” said Chidi, “I don’t want to be a nag, but shouldn’t there be someone here to greet us?”

“Well,” said Michael, “with no new entrants in 521 years, perhaps they simply aren’t expecting anyone.”

“Can we ring a bell?” asked Jason. “Or jimmy the lock with something? Back in Jacksonville—”

“No,” said Eleanor hurriedly. “We want them to let us stay, remember? Breaking and entering is not going to help with that.”

“Technically, we’ve already done that,” said Janet. “Michael’s right. Five hundred twenty-one years is a long time even in Jeremy Bearimy. It could be anywhere from an hour to seven and a half months before they think to check for new arrivals.”

“Tell you what,” said Tahani. “Why don’t we play a little game to pass the time?”

“Ooh, a game?” asked Jason excitedly. “I love games!”

“Really?” asked Eleanor. “I was sure you’d be demanding to speak to a manager.”

Tahani grimaced, but managed to nod along. “If this does indeed last seven and a half months, I surely will,” she said, “but for now, in the name of giving a good first impression, I don’t see the harm in being patient for a spell.”

“Okay, spill,” said Eleanor. “What’s this really about?”

Tahani sighed. “Well,” she began, “I was thinking about your little revelation, Eleanor, and I found myself just idly wondering what else from all of those alternate timelines we really ought to know. I thought perhaps Michael and Janet could regale us with some tales.”

“Well, I hate to disappoint you, Tahani, but there’s not much to tell,” said Michael. “You guys arrived, I tortured you, Eleanor figured it out. There was some variance, of course, but that was more or less it for every attempt except the last, when we finally teamed up.”

“Yes, so you’ve said,” said Tahani, “but now that we know that Eleanor and Chidi were involved in one timeline, I wondered whether anyone else ever had such an, er, afterlife bonding experience.”

Michael paused. “Oh!” he said after a moment. “You want to know about that time you and Eleanor were soulmates.”

“What?!” asked Eleanor, Chidi, and Tahani all at once.

Eleanor recovered first. “Oh man,” she said, looking Tahani up and down. “I hit that? Dude, Michael, you definitely gotta let me remember hitting that.”

“Eleanor,” Tahani began, flushing, but Michael shook his head.

“You did not, as you say, hit that,” said Michael, and Tahani and Chidi both breathed a sigh of relief. “It was one of the shorter reboots. You irritated each other immediately and tortured each other for about a week, but then you bonded, and you ended up feeling so sorry for Tahani being stuck with you that you realized you were in the Bad Place.”

“Oh,” said Eleanor, visibly disappointed. “Did we at least make out?”

“That you did,” said Michael. “You kissed Tahani, for the first and last time, just before announcing that you were in the Bad Place.”

“Awww,” said Tahani, “you kissed me goodbye, Eleanor? I mean, I can’t possibly have been into it, but that’s very sweet of you to have done.”

“You were into it,” said Michael. “In a way, it was a more perfect torture than I could have ever devised. After spending a week trying to hide your despair over our terrible mistake, you had one tiny moment of happiness thinking it wasn’t a mistake after all, which Eleanor promptly ripped away by revealing you were in the Bad Place.”

“Yikes,” said Eleanor. “Sorry, Tahani.”

“No harm done,” said Tahani, reddening. “But, er, enough about me—”

“What?” said Eleanor. “Wow, this place is getting to you already.”

“Very funny,” said Tahani. “But seriously, what about the others? Did, say, Jason ever fall in love with someone? Like, say, Janet? Or vice versa, perhaps?”

“Tahani,” said Janet, in a subtly dangerous tone, “did you by any chance go snooping around my void after I took you all in there to protect you from the last scary thing?”

“In our defense, Eleanor was causing the entire void to disintegrate around us,” said Tahani, in her best aggrieved tones.

“Oh yeah,” said Jason. “I totally forgot after we got sucked out of the white place and then went through that pipe thing. Janet, were we married?”

“Yes,” said Janet. “And no. It was not legal, but it did happen, and I still love you.”

“Aw, man!” said Jason. “That’s so dope! I love you, too, girl!”

“Not a girl,” said Janet automatically. “But Tahani, I just want to say that I’m very happy we’ve all made it to the Good Place, and I sincerely look forward to making your stay here absolutely perfect. But I’ve also been waiting a long time to say this, so now that you’re dead again, stay away from my husband.”

“I assure you our marriage was purely platonic,” said Tahani, annoyed.

“This time,” said Janet.

“Sorry, what?” said Tahani. “What do you mean, this time?”

“Nothing,” said Janet quickly.

“Am I to understand that Jason and I were married in one of these reboots?” asked Tahani, her voice rising to the sort of perfectly appalled pitch that only a British aristocrat could ever hope to reach.

“We were all married?” said Jason. “Dope!”

“We were not all married,” said Janet, “and technically, you didn’t quite make it to the altar, but only because I almost disintegrated the neighborhood out of jealousy, and then I made a rebound boyfriend who almost got us all discovered.”

“Damn,” said Eleanor. “I feel you, girl.”

“Not a girl,” Janet repeated.

“Well,” said Tahani, “not to brag, of course, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s nearly disintegrated a set over jealousy of me. Due to a misunderstanding, my good friend Matt Damon briefly labored the misapprehension that my good friend Ben Affleck and I were planning to write a script together, and he would only be mollified when we assured him that I was merely going to be the star of a film that they would write—which is, of course, not the point.” She sighed. “So Jason and I were once involved for real? You’re quite serious?”

“Yes,” said Janet. “Don’t do it again.”

“Hey,” said Eleanor, laying a hand on her arm. “If it makes you feel better, I am totally down to make out.”

“Uh, what?” said Chidi, glancing between them. “I, ah, thought we had something here? Weren’t you just disintegrating an entire universe-spanning void over, well—”

“You?” Eleanor smiled. “Yes. I love you. Don’t you want to watch two total smoke shows make out?”

Chidi blinked. “Yes. No. This is confusing. I have a stomachache.”


End file.
